| Contents Notes |
Surrounded by randomness: probabilities everywhere -- What are the odds of that? Coincidence and surprise -- Laying down the law: why casinos always win -- Dealing the cards: bridge, poker, and blackjack -- Murder most foul: measuring trends -- Utility functions: how to make decisions -- White lab coats: what studies do and don't show -- Ain't gonna happen: very low probabilities -- Interlude: the case of the collapsing casino -- Fifty-one percent to forty-nine percent: the true meaning of polls -- Nineteen times out of twenty: margins of error -- Randomness to the rescue: when uncertainty is your friend -- Evolution, genes, and viruses: randomness in biology -- That wily Monty Hall: finding probabilities from clues -- Spam, spam, probability, and spam: blocking unwanted e-mail -- Ignorance, chaos, and quantum mechanics: causes of randomness -- Final exam: do you have probability perspective? Explains the mechanics of randomness in order to help people develop an informed perspective on probability and recognize how many aspects of life are ruled by uncertainty and randomness. |
